On Saturday, upcoming singer Ovid was the convener of the latest Bantu Sessions at Bantu Studios in Abuja. Bantu Sessions is a concert series that started in 2015, the aim is to showcase creativity in an intimate setting where the talent and the attendees can interact freely.

The show was billed to start by 7:00PM, so I obliged by showing up only a few minutes after the hour. I had missed the last Bantu Session that I had an interest in seeing (it featured Suté Iwar) and hadn’t forgiven both myself and my phone reminder ever since.

The energy at Bantu Studios that night was dark but warm – the lights were dimmed out, the room was relaxed and chair cushions formed neat square and circle stools on the floor covered by rich fabric. The microphone too was covered, but with a scarf and so was the stool in front of it – everything in the room resonated the same energy. The gifted Tay Iwar buried his head in a MacBook in a corner as he sifted through the music, his role behind the boards was to be a thankless but very important one.

The star of the night’s show Ovid walked into the venue a few minutes to 8:00PM to meet a room of ardent fans and folks, like me, who were just curious to find out why he’s been likened to The Weeknd. As he sat in front of the microphone, Ovid acknowledged that it wasn’t only his supporters that were in the room and thanked everyone for being there with him.

He then went on to perform a few songs from his forthcoming album Unruly and took the time to explain the inherently rebellious title.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BSEpBC7BtHf/?taken-by=filterfreeng

From the minute Ovid entered the studio, you could feel the full weight of his spirit. There wasn’t much cheer in the room as he performed, but his music is dripped in melancholy anyway, so you didn’t exactly expect him to sing with a big smile on his face.

Just like Weeknd, Ovid’s music comes from a deep, dark place that could easily be misunderstood and the dread-locked singer was more in a hurry to perform his songs than to explain the thought process behind them. But as he performed, you could feel his thoughts wander.

At the start of the show, Ovid had disclosed that he almost didn’t make the show because of some events in his personal life but no one really knew how bad things were – so he elaborated. According to Ovid, a dear friend had recently threatened him with a knife and it’s an experience that left him shook, even as he performed on Saturday night.

Ovid’s sour mood, no doubt, put a damper on the show. The highlight of his session was arguably “2AM in Las Gidi”, one of his most popular songs. The singer had asked the audience to make a request and his splendid ode to the Lagos nightlife was thrown back at him.

Listen below:

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/284624709″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

But Ovid’s demons eventually caught up with him as he struggled through his performance – the singer was unable to finish “2AM” before stumbling to the next song, and to the next song. Listen to more of the singer’s music here.

In a twisted way, Ovid’s gloomy performance added to the spectacle – there’s something about watching an artist who sings so much about self-destructing actually do so in front of your very eyes, with sombre, soul-searching music as the haunting backdrop.